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MY DOCTOR 



BY 



WILLIE WALLIS MOORE 

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NEW YORK 

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Copyright, 1916 

BY 

MRS. WILLIE W. MOORE 




MAY -6 1916 
©CI.A427975 



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Co 

The Memory of My Husband 
DOCTOR JAMES CLINTON MOORE 



PREFACE 

This little book was written because I 
wanted a word picture of My Doctor (my hus- 
band who had the experiences herein related). 

That he was nearly six feet tall, broad 
shouldered, and had clear blue-gray eyes, 
that could look you in the face is of little 
consequence, compared to what he did and 
how he did it. 

He was active in his own little part of this 
busy world and loved the kind of work he did 
in it. 

He interested himself in the lives of those 
with whom he came in contact. He mingled 
kindly with the people in their every-day 
affairs and their sorrows. He would have liked 
to have shared oftener their joys, had he the 
time. He did what he could for the people 
and made it a second consideration what they 
could do for him. 

He claimed no perfection in anything — 
neither am I claiming it for him. 



vi PREFACE 

These experiences herein related could 
come to any family physician, similarly 
situated. 

I wrote the most of this with the help of 
memory only. Memory softens experiences 
and the average mind can hold only a few of 
the many impressions. I am forced to make 
a dim picture for the negative was taken 
within a shadow. 



My Doctor 



There are many homes the inmates 
whereof take pride in speaking of some one, 
as my doctor. 

The doctor of mine, the doctor of yours — is 
he who comes to us when Pain's intense vigil 
keeps us in darkness and doubt. There by 
our bedside the doctor uses his knowledge so 
that we get relief from agony and his pres- 
ence brings courage and cheer. 

Suffering humanity of all walks of life 
is the clay from which the doctor molds his 
best, as the knowledge of his art suggests. 

As the doctor lets his patients have that 
which can be neither weighed nor measured, 
the best of himself, his rightful position is 
above all professions, save one. For he is 
honor bound to disclose all his knowledge 
and use his physical strength to its limit, if 
his patient needs it. It is equally as much 



2 MY DOCTOR 

his duty to keep from the public whatever he 
may learn concerning his patient, if the know- 
ing would be against the interest of those 
who trusted him as their physician. 

Real physicians are daily forced to confront 
problems, and the right solution of them, 
tend toward their best and noblest qualities. 

When we think of the countless deeds of 
kindness and mercy that the real doctors do, 
in all their years, unselfishly in the name 
of charity — sweet charity; when we ponder 
these things in our heart, if in a better world 
than this, there is a crown of a little more 
jewels than others, it surely is in keeping for 
the faithful doctor's brow. 

This one, My Doctor, on a twentieth of 
March nearly a half-century ago, was a new 
baby. From the first he was called Jim. 
It suited him. It never would have been 
appropriate for him to have been called Baby 
or Sonny by his parents, or Little Brother 
by several sisters and a brother. Physically 
he was never the pet baby style. Strangers 
knew that baby was not Mary nor Susie when 
his dresses were two yards long. Babies 
wore very long dresses then. 



MY DOCTOR 3 

This baby's father was probate judge of 
his county. 

The court-house was the center of the town. 
It was the center of interest of the entire 
county. 

The Judge had a large home on a spacious 
lot — a small farm. This home was a free 
inn to all the possible voters of the county, 
their families, friends, horses, and dogs. 

The Judge and his wife believed and taught 
their children that "A man's a man for a' 
that." Jim was a boy "For a' that." He 
was into everything other boys could do. 
He climbed the peach trees, as soon as the 
blossoms fell, to eat the green peaches when 
he was a little one on the borderland between 
baby -hood and boy life. 

Occasions around the court-house were of 
much concern to him. He was permitted to 
go there often. He was either petted or 
teased by the county officers whenever he 
came in contact with them. They contin- 
ually noticed him. A man never notices, 
pets, and teases a boy, without he loves the 
boy. 

It was a great event when a jury gave a 



4 MY DOCTOR 

verdict that a culprit must hang by the neck 
till dead. Jim, with the other boys in the 
community, practiced on the flock of his 
mother's geese to be able to give points to 
their friend, the sheriff. 

Jim, with his crowd, made and remade 
dams across the running stream in the far- 
ther end of the pasture, increasing the size 
of their swimming holes as their legs grew 
longer. 

His school and Sunday School experiences 
were in common with other village boys who 
had to attend both places of instruction. 
Jim was careless about taking his books home. 
His father said one night after supper, "Jim, 
where are your books?" "They are at the 
schoolhouse, sir." "Go right now and get 
them. " There was never a time for a child 
to argue with Judge Moore. It was prompt 
obedience. The schoolhouse was on a hill 
the opposite side of the town. At the foot of 
the hill was the cemetery. Every stone, 
stray animal, and even the breezes blowing 
through the shrubbery are frightful objects 
after dark near a cemetery to most young 
boys, and Jim was no exception. Jim went 



MY DOCTOR 5 

and managed to return with his books by 
running both ways. 

The old negro servant, Sarah, hurriedly 
finished her night duties and went to meet 
him. "Jim, honey chile, han' me dem books, 
I'se come to tote 'em fur you. Don't you 
nevah nigger lee' dese books no mo'." Jim 
never did. 

It was the fashion for little boys to wear 
natural-colored linen clothes. Jim's mother 
took pride in fixing her children to look well. 
He detested the stiff, light-colored clothes. 
He gloried in getting them soiled so he could 
put on his dark pants and plain jackets. 

Judge Moore knew boys must be kept busy 
in doing something useful or they would busy 
themselves otherwise. He owned the cotton- 
gin of the town. The gin was then run with 
a horse. Jim's first job was to sit upon a 
beam and keep the old horse going slowly 
around a circle — a monotonous job for a 
live boy. 

Fortunately, Jim's father was progressive 
and soon installed steam power. 

Jim was made happy when he began to 
enter his teens by his father buying for him a 



6 MY DOCTOR 

foot-power scroll-saw. He made balustrades 
for all the pretentious homes near and the 
money was his own. With it he bought 
a gold ring. The ring did not suit his big 
busy hand. One of the neighbor girls was 
wearing it for him. When his mother knew 
it she said, "Jim, go right now and get that 
ring." 

Jim had a wood-working establishment in a 
corner of the smoke-house. His specialties 
were scrollwork and beehives. He did this 
between school hours, gin work, and being 
general errand-boy for the family. 

The next boyish business effort with Jim 
was hauling. He lived in a town some dis- 
tance from a railroad and still farther from a 
navigable stream. 

One of his never-forgotten experiences was 
moving a prominent politician, who at that 
time was a bachelor, to an adjoining county- 
seat. This bachelor had a high beaver hat 
that he wore on special occasions. He forgot 
this hat until after Jim had loaded his wagon 
with law books, book-cases, tables, chairs, 
and trunks. The lawyer and Jim after talk- 
ing it over decided it would be the best place 



MY DOCTOR 7 

to put the hat on a chair-post at the top of the 
load. 

The lawyer and the boy soon forgot. Go- 
ing over the rough mountainous road they 
passed a rougher place than usual, which was 
very jolting; the hat fell from the chair-post 
and was mashed by the wagon wheels. 

The lawyer looked serious. Jim looked 
more so. He was thinking ' ' heavy lifting and 
a long trip for a mashed hat." 

When the destination was reached, the 
lawyer said, "Jim, here is your money." 

"But Mr. L , I broke your hat." "Oh, 

Jim, I ran over it as much as you did. And 
I agreed to putting it on that chair-post. " 

For all the years afterwards the sight of 
hats built on similar patterns to that one 
brought to Jim's mind amusing memories of 
that mashed hat. 

After twenty-three years of honor and 
labor — mostly the latter, of judgeship, Judge 
Moore was defeated because he had served 
the people too long. 

The family moved to a nearby growing 
city. Notwithstanding the new surroundings 



8 MY DOCTOR 

and new conditions, a normal boy was a 
match for circumstances. He soon knew the 
city — the nearest way everywhere. 

The city was in the beginning of the mak- 
ing. It was not necessary to "column right" 
or ' ' column left ' ' at the corner of every block. 
Out where the ex- judge located the land was 
in the acreage. It is now considered rather 
near in ; the popular residence section. 

Jim spent one year in the city schools. 
There were only a few school buildings in the 
growing city. Jim was fortunate in having 
an unusually good teacher. The principal 
of the school, who was a very capable man, 
was the teacher of the advanced classes. 

The next year Jim was sent to a prepar- 
atory school in the town of the State Uni- 
versity. After a year of good instruction 
he was able to enter the Sophomore Class 
of the University. At that time it was a 
military school. 

He graduated with no special honor, except 
the captain's straps on his shoulders. He 
was a member of a popular fraternity. He 
said in reference to his college experience: 
' ' I killed time, spent money — did as most of 



MY DOCTOR 9 

the other boys — studied very little. The 
fact that I have been sorry about many a 
time is, I did not take anything very serious 
as I should have done." 

About the time of his graduation his home 
city had the calamity of an inflated land 
boom. Judge Moore had his all invested 
and lost. It was not long until Judge 
Moore's death. There was a financial crisis. 
There was nothing to do. There were too 
many applicants for every position and every 
job. 

Jim had to go to work at something. He 
went to a little railroad town in the county 
of his nativity, and with little help learned 
telegraphy. After becoming capable he was 
given a position at the small salary of forty- 
two dollars and a half a month, for twelve 
hours out of every twenty-four, of responsible 
work, mostly at night, as telegraph operator 
for one of the main railroad lines near his 
home city. 

He held the position for several years. 
One night after thumping the telegraph key, 
reading messages, delivering the copies to 
engineers and conductors, and going out and 



io MY DOCTOR 

changing the signal, there was nothing to do 
for an hour or so. He usually nodded then, 
but that particular night he had no desire 
to sleep. He said his mind kept busy- 
as he sat there resting an elbow on an 
instrument table with his chin upon his 
hand. He had a square-cut chin and the 
lines of his mouth were strong, both showing 
abiding character, firm and indomitable. 
His thoughts were: "Here am I working for 
very little, at steady work, with scarcely 
any prospect of rising. I have a good educa- 
tion. What am I doing with it?" Then 
he thought of two doctors he knew whom he 
had been associated with all his life, and 
who were making successful practitioners. 
Then he came to this conclusion: "I can 
do anything they can. I can. I will. I am 
going to study medicine." 

From that moment he had gone beyond the 
"perplexity in the valley of vision, " and had 
met face to face his best self, real, and terribly 
insistent, denying defeat and demanding 
recognition. 

His resolution was not a repetition of the 
noted one made by the Prodigal Son, but 



MY DOCTOR ii 

there was this in common in their determina- 
tions, l l I will arise and go. ' ' Whoever makes 
these three advances has gone a long distance 
toward covering the worst of the roughest 
road. 

This would-be doctor had no means. His 
mother gave him the little that she had — not 
enough for a comfortable year at school. 

The years spent at medical study, were as 
few young men would dare undertake. 

The sessions were shorter than now. So 
there were several months to work between 
the school years. 

He gave up almost everything that youth 
enjoys and made out on the necessities. On 
several different occasions he was forced to 
take the flaps of his pockets to mend his 
clothes. 

His instructors thought well of him and 
many of his colleagues loved him. He kept 
his circumstances to himself as far as he could. 
Once he was forced to tell his roommate. 
It was a month before graduation. He had 
written for a loan of twenty-five dollars. He 
was almost out of money but he had a rail- 
road pass home. He got no answer to his 



12 MY DOCTOR 

letter. That morning he did not go to his 
classes. When his roommate came in the 
strong big young man had packed his trunk 
and was sitting with bowed head. "What 
is the matter, Moore ? Are you sick ? " " No, 
Walker, I am worse than sick. I wrote for 
a loan of twenty-five dollars and I can't get 
an answer. I can not finish this year's work. 
I will have to go home, work another year, 
and go through this another year. It is two 
more years' grind for me." 

"You shall not do that Moore, I'll share 
what I have with you." He (My Doctor 
as a student) borrowed the money from 
his roommate reluctantly but nevertheless 
thankfully. 

It was several months before My Doctor 
was really enough of somebody's doctor to 
have the small amount of twenty-five dollars 
to return to his friend. 

It was paid from the first money received 
for doing the work of contract practice. 

Soon after My Doctor graduated he 
received his license to practice. Then he 
began to consider where he would locate. 

He had a friend who was a bright young 



MY DOCTOR 13 

active doctor who had been established for 
several years in a coal mining town, near 
where the newly graduated doctor lived. 

This established Dr. C had the best 

general practice in his vicinity and a contract 
practice for those who worked at a mine a 
few miles away. He also had prospects of 
getting another contract for another mine a 
few miles farther in the opposite direction. 

Dr. C formed a partnership with My 

Doctor. They did general practice and had 
two contract practices. 

Contract practice has its advantages and 
disadvantages (My Doctor would say mostly 
the latter). It is a post-graduate school with 
almost every branch of medicine and surgery. 
Experience is the teacher and there is plenty 
of material for the clinics. 

For Dr. C 's and My Doctor's contracts 

the head of each family paid directly or 
through the office of the mining company 
a small amount each month for the family 
doctoring. 

There were many emergency cases, when 
the doctor had to think quickly and care- 
fully. It was advantageous for My Doctor 



14 MY DOCTOR 

to have the experienced Dr. C for a 

co-worker. 

It is easy enough when in the equations of 
life we find 2 + 2 = 4 — that is, the exact 
combination of known values is equal to 
other known values ; but life or an undertak- 
ing of it is not quite as we would like it best 
when a + b = x — that is, a combination of 
values not so clear to us, producing something 
we do not absolutely know. 

Medical practice has much of the figura- 
tive algebraic equations. The human body 
is not mathematically rule bound. My 
Doctor during his first few months found 
many things to cope with that were not 
taught him as a student. 

The first case of the kind was when My 
Doctor answered the call of a miner to attend 
his wife. Had it been a normal case he 
would have known almost to a certain ty, but 
he found complications arising and the 
woman was almost reaching her limit of 
physical endurance hoping to hold in her 
arms a wee bit of humanity as her own. It 

was several miles back to Dr. C . My 

Doctor thought he knew what to do. If 



MY DOCTOR 15 

he did and failed? He wrote this note and 

sent it hurriedly to Dr. C : "Have 

mercy on me C and come at once." 

Dr. C made a hasty trip and with his 

suggestion and aid all went well. 

It is not necessary to describe coal mines, 
whether tunnels or shafts, the owners, super- 
intendents, commissaries, management or 
mismanagement, though to a great extent 
the doctor is interested in everything relat- 
ing to the mines. 

The miners, their homes, their lives, mostly 
concerned the doctors. 

The nearer mine was an old one. There 
were very ordinary little homes. At one 
time, either for ornamentation or health, the 
places had been whitewashed. 

The other mine was new. The little 
houses where the miners lived were of rough 
lumber, planked up and down. These homes 
had one or two big rooms and an outside 
chimney and a shed room. 

There were only two wells in the entire 
place of several hundred people to get water. 

There was a boarding house similar to 



1 6 MY DOCTOR 

the homes. It was two storied and had 
about six rooms which often had as many as 
fifteen or twenty boarders in it. The miners 
were by forced custom and nature transient 
beings. Circumstances and surroundings 
were not conducive to health. The contract 
doctor was kept busy — often unnecessarily 
so. 

A young miner a fine specimen of manhood, 
physically, married a young girl only fifteen 
years old. It was not unusual for girls so 
young to marry in the mining camps. This 
young man, either from ignorance or thought- 
lessness or both, forgot that his child wife 
was his to protect and care for, and because 
of her youth needed his best care. 

The child had become almost an invalid 
before My Doctor was called. He tactfully 
questioned and found his fears true. The 
strong husband was roughly lectured. 

In all walks of life, combined moral and 
physical questions forever confront a busy 
doctor. 

Dr. C and My Doctor by their own 

work and with their own money put in their 



MY DOCTOR 17 

own private telephone system from their 
town to the two mines. 

After the telephones had been installed 
for several months and were a success, the 
proprietor of one of the mines, who lived in a 
nearby city, began to dictate to the young 
doctors how they were to use their own tele- 
phones. 

If they did not do as he said, he would 
break up their contract, was the proprietor's 
threat. 

My Doctor was as angry as any experience 
of his practice ever made him. The miners 
were the doctors' friends. They, the doctors, 
went to a meeting of the Miners' Union with 
the trouble. 

They moved the telephone to their own 
private office, one built by themselves, away 
from the coal company's property. 

My Doctor had practiced for over a year 
in the mining town. Then he married a 
young woman he had known in the years 
before his struggle began. They had written 
to one another. He had been to her town 
of a hundred miles' distance to see her, when 



1 8 MY DOCTOR 

he could get away from his practice. She 
wore the ring he had given her. 

The wedding was the usual affair as the 
paragraph above tells the usual steps to it. 
It was an early morning marriage, with good 
music and many pretty flowers, at her sister's 
home. They were surrounded by a few 
relatives of both families and her inner circle 
of friends. There was no wedding journey. 

She went home with him to help him best 
serve humanity. 

My Doctor's first conveyance after he 
began practicing was a low framed buggy. 
This buggy was pulled by a gentle gray 
horse, "Old Fan." 

Among his early calls was one several miles 
from the mining town. He went on the call 
before night. On both sides of the road, the 
woods were thick with a dense undergrowth. 
In many places outcrops of coal had been 
worked by private parties which added to the 
roughness of the naturally rough country. 
My Doctor did not get started homeward 
until after dark. By then it was raining — a 
slow rain, that makes darkness doubly dark. 



MY DOCTOR 19 

After riding about a mile My Doctor knew 
he was lost. ' ' Old Fan ' ' came to a dead halt 
and refused to move. He got out of the 
buggy and felt around in the darkness to see 
why they had stopped. There was a deep 
place where coal had been dug in front of 
them that was impassable. He stood there 
in the rain awhile wondering if he had better 
hitch and wait all night. He did not like 
that idea. He was too wet to be comfortable. 
He backed "Old Fan." "Let me see what 
this horse can do. She knows this country 
much better than I." The faithful horse 
turned around and started off in the opposite 
direction. She soon was in a familiar road, 
as he could tell by the lightning flashes. 

One mining camp was five miles away by 
the good road and about three by a terribly 
mountainous private way. It could hardly 
be called a road. To save time — a doctor 
young in his profession, as all youth, hurries 
— the roughest way was the oftenest taken. 
There had been heavy rains. There was a 
swift mountain stream that emptied in a 
nearby river. On one occasion when "Old 
Fan" was driven to the stream she re- 



20 MY DOCTOR 

fused to go into it. Coaxing and the whip 
had no effect. My Doctor felt into the water 
with a pole. He learned there was a deep 
washout there at the crossing that would 
have been perilous had My Doctor gotten in 
it. He managed to turn around and go the 
five miles* way to the mine. 

There was out from My Doctor's first 
location about three miles a beautiful spot 
surrounded by mountains. Down in the 
center was a lithia spring. Around the 
spring were many varieties of native ferns 
that grew to perfection on account of the 
fertile soil and the shade. On the mountain 
sides were a few cabins. Occasionally some- 
one spent part of the summer there. After 
one left the main road the way was up the 
ditches for about the distance of a mile. At 
some places there would be two ditches and at 
others there would be one. A horse had to 
be somewhat of an acrobat to keep himself 
balanced. As for the load, either human or 
the necessities of the people, it was jerked, 
tossed, and tumbled. 

The first summer of My Doctor's practice 



MY DOCTOR 21 

lie had a patient — a child with a severe form 
of diphtheria — out at the lithia springs. 

He knew that the child needed a great 
deal of attention, and he knew where she was 
located she could not get it. He knew it was 
impossible for her to be taken back to her 
own home in the city in the condition she 
was in, so he had the child, her mother and 
aunt moved into the town to share his own 
home with him. He made the sacrifice for 
the distressed mother and the suffering 
child. 

In the little mining town there were no 
quarantine laws. My Doctor was successful 
in using the right means in keeping the con- 
tagion from spreading, for not another person 
took diphtheria from that patient. 

Every day whether called or not, one of the 
partnership doctors went to each mining 
camp. Often both went to both of the min- 
ing camps. Many times before they returned 
there was a call to go in haste to see anything 
from a well baby who kept crying because 
his clothing was uncomfortable, to doing a 
surgical operation upon a man with a frac- 
tured skull. 



22 MY DOCTOR 

It was the night after Christmas, and a 
very cold one, for icicles were hanging two 
feet from the tank in the back yard. The 
telephone rang about the time My Doctor 
was comfortably asleep. The call was to the 
farthest neighborhood of the farthest away 
mine, to see a boy about twelve years old. 
It was an hour or more before My Doctor 
could get his horse hitched and take the long 
ride. After bedtime the doctor can make a 
very safe guess of the place that he is needed, 
by the lighted house. 

After going in and asking a few questions, 
he learned the boy was having digestive 
disturbances caused from eating too much. 
He could tell by the touch that the child had 
some fever. He prepared to try his ther- 
mometer. After placing it in the patient's 
mouth the boy said, "I done bit it off, Doc. 
Must I swallow it?" It would not be just 
the thing to tell what My Doctor said. He 
had only the one thermometer. It would be 
a day before he could get one from the city; 
besides he needed his money. 

The doctors heard that some of the leaders 
among the miners were talking of having a 




MY DOCTOR 



MY DOCTOR 23 

strike. My Doctor and Dr. C were in- 
terested for all concerned. Together they tried 
to devise means to avoid the strike. They 
talked with different members of the Miners' 
Union. They were interested for the good 
of all and worked for that. They were so 
persistent and faithful that for that year they 
were the means of preventing a strike. 

My Doctor during a short visit to the city 
had a conversation with a leading doctor, 

Dr. C. W . This doctor told My Doctor 

that he had heard of his good works up at the 
mines — but up there he had gone as high as 
he ever could. "Now the thing for you to 
do, Moore, is to go to the people," was his 
friendly advice. It was not a new thought to 
My Doctor. He had already talked and 
planned of moving. Now with him it was a 
settled fact. When? Where? These were 
his two questions. 

He soon decided upon his new location. 
After considering the matter with a brother- 
in-law who had a railroad commissary in the 
most industrial suburb of the town of his new 
location, he thought it best to live as near the 



24 MY DOCTOR 

commissary as possible. By doing so he 
could more quickly know the real makers of 
the town, the wage earners, and the wage 
spenders, who were mostly iron molders 
and men employed by the railroads. 

The only place to be gotten was a small 
cottage across the avenue from the com- 
missary. His practice came slowly and his 
fees slower. He knew they would and was 
not disappointed in that respect. There are 
usually a few people who have the trying 
habit. Sometimes they are the ones the 
established doctors are glad for another to 
get. There are patients who have the idea 
that no one has ever understood their con- 
struction, obstruction, or reconstruction. 
These are always playing the old game of 
1 ' Puss wants a corner — Go to the next neigh- 
bor" — doctor. They usually walk and al- 
ways talk. Their talk may be seed that falls 
upon the stony paths and the chattering 
birds of discontent may fill their bills and 
fly away, or more likely some of the talk 
will fall upon good ground and yield its 
hundred fold. 

There are always new people moving into 



MY DOCTOR 25 

the larger places. Their next door neighbor 
tells them who is the best in the medical 
profession near, their own doctor of course. 
There is also a continual formation of the 
next greatest partnership on earth — the great- 
est mankind with God, the next greatest 
man with woman when they take the mar- 
riage vows. New homes are forever begin- 
ning, into which sooner or later a doctor is 
needed. 

A benedict for a few months less than a 
year had been master of his little home. He 
came to have an important quiet short talk 
with My Doctor. The result was a special 
appointment for a near but indefinite time 
for My Doctor to be master of ceremonies 
for the most important event that so far has 
affected the new home. The same man may 
have come to My Doctor every two years 
for the same purpose, but never with the 
same secrecy and anxiety. 

A knock on the side entrance door, moan- 
in gs and groanings are heard. It is past 
midnight. A man is brought with a shot 
hand. My Doctor and his wife both arise. 



26 MY DOCTOR 

She prepares water, towels, and other neces- 
sary things. In the crowded up little home, 
the patient and his several followers are 
asked in the bedroom until the proper treat- 
ment is given. 

After getting back to sleep — another knock 
— a neighbor comes to ask if he can call Dr. 

(a physician several miles away) to come 

to see the baby. There was nothing to do 
but let him come in. My Doctor answered 
something that the neighbor thought gave 
him right of way to the telephone. When 
he got there he was terribly impatient because 
"Central" was not quick enough to suit him. 
After he left, My Doctor permanently placed 
that man in the superlative degree of fooldom. 
Positive degree, fool, comparative degree 
common fool, superlative degree fool. 

The telephone was a wall attached one 
by the side entrance door, diagonally across 
the room from the bed. More than once 
My Doctor had to leave his wife at home 
alone, sick in bed, with a temperature of over 
a hundred, and go to see some sick person. 
If the telephone rang, it must be answered. 
She would catch from chair to chair getting 



MY DOCTOR 27 

the distance from the bed to the telephone. 
She would get the message and be glad to 
tell the doctor of a new call, forgetting that 
the exertion had made her temperature 
rise. Neither were glad that anyone was 
sick, but if sickness was near My Doctor 
was being called. 

There was a time when messengers for the 
doctor rode to the gate — for everyone had 
fences then — and called out their "Hello, 
here!" If not a "Hello" from the front 
gate, a knock on the front door by the person 
in search of the doctor. 

In My Doctor's years of work, his messages 
were most often telephone calls. The doc- 
tors know that the telephone is one of the 
most necessary parts of their equipment. 
When anything gets the matter with it they 
hurriedly see that it is fixed. 

In all the years of My Doctor's practice he 
had good service from the telephone system. 
The "Centrals" were, almost without excep- 
tion, prompt and polite. 

In the years that My Doctor was a prac- 
ticing physician his office was in a building 
with a drug store or near enough one to be 



28 MY DOCTOR 

used by him. The town doctor and the 
drug store are each necessary the one to the 
other. 

In the country, the mining camp, and the 
villages the doctor compounds his own 
medicine. The town doctor writes his pre- 
scription, has the family send it to the drug- 
gist or often leaves it at the drug store 
himself or telephones it in to them. The 
prescription is the medium between the 
doctor and the pharmacist. 

Along with the home of the doctor and 
his office the drug store is a medium between 
the doctor and the people. Telephone 
messages and calls are sent in to the drug 
store and the druggist or his assistants 
deliver them as soon as they can. 

Between his hours of study and professional 
calls, My Doctor had regular times — or as 
regular as a busy doctor could have — for 
going to the drug store. It was more con- 
venient for some of his busy patients to 
meet him there than at the office. 

My Doctor understood what it was to do 
the work of the pharmacist, and often com- 
mented on his long tedious hours of ser- 



MY DOCTOR 29 

vice. He was sympathetic. In showing at 
all times, consideration, he got in return 
true friendship and gentle treatment toward 
himself. For "As in water, face answereth 
to face, so the heart of man to man. " 

My Doctor, during his early practice, 
was for two years City Physician. It was 
while he lived in the little cottage across the 
avenue from the commissary. 

His principal duty as a city officer was to 
attend the sick prisoners of the little city. 
It was working under difficulties. The 
work was for the depraved and deprived of 
both the negroes and the white people. He 
had this experience concerning a boy about 
eighteen years old. The young fellow was 
arrested at the railroad station, and was tried 
and condemned for vagrancy. He was fined, 
but did not have the money to pay the fine, 
so he was put on the streets to labor with the 
other criminals. My Doctor thought from 
the looks of the young prisoner he was out of 
his element. After questioning the boy he 
learned that the young fellow was the son of 
a successful practicing physician in an adjoin- 



30 MY DOCTOR 

ing state, that the mother was dead, that the 
father had lately married again, and that he 
(the boy) decided to show his resentment by 
running away from home. My Doctor 
wired the doctor-father who came and paid 
the fine and took the boy home. In the 
meantime My Doctor made it convenient to 
have a fatherly talk with the horizontally 
striped clad young fellow, encouraging him 
to go home and begin in the right direction 
toward "making good." He had the boy to 
put off his striped garb and put back on his 
own suit and look as well as he could under 
the circumstances, when the father came the 
following day to take his son from the city 
prison. 

Another duty as City Physician was to 
attend those who were very poor, there were 
always many who were sufficiently sick to 
need a doctor. 

There were contagious diseases to be looked 
after and made record of and he had to com- 
bine the records of the other doctors concern- 
ing the same. The worst epidemic that has 
ever occurred in the town, or little city, was 
while My Doctor was City Physician — that 



MY DOCTOR 31 

of smallpox. Smallpox is generally a re- 
specter of persons. It was to some extent 
then, but not absolutely. There were some 
who, for some reason or other, had not been 
vaccinated, and others who had been careless 
and had not been revaccinated when neces- 
sary and were afflicted with either smallpox 
or variola. 

A number of the negroes were smallpox pa- 
tients. They were by nature night animals. 
From combined sympathy and curiosity they 
went to see their sick friends. There was 
a county pesthouse, beyond the city limits. 
The city had no guarded place for any con- 
tagious diseases. If patients were not sent 
to the pesthouse a guard, who was an im- 
mune, one who either had had smallpox or 
the milder form of the disease, was placed to 
keep any one from going in where there was 
a case — except the doctor. The doctor (My 
Doctor) made his rounds and came home to 
change clothes and use disinfectants. Per- 
haps by the time he was ready to go out he 
was called to see another smallpox patient. 
Some days he would have to go home several 
times to use the right preventative methods. 



32 MY DOCTOR 

The best room in the little house was used for 
disinfecting and fumigating, because it was 
the one that could be most easily spared for 
that purpose. 

There was a father of half a dozen children, 
who was a capable workman whenever he 
would work. He drank and spent his earn- 
ings faster than he made them, that is, he 
was in debt to everybody who would trust 
him. The little wife and mother did her best, 
which was not much. That man had one of 
the worst forms of smallpox during the epi- 
demic. For several weeks My Doctor at- 
tended him, going once or twice daily. He 
took it upon himself to see that the patient 
had the medicine he needed. By word nor 
pocket-book did that man ever express a 
"Thank you." 

There was a big fat black negro woman, 
"Aunt Lucy," who wabbled instead of 
walked. She was My Doctor's patient. A 
rather objectionable case on his part, but he 
made the best of it. After she had gotten 
well, she came to see if there was not some- 
thing she could do for her doctor. What- 
ever the other qualities are of the negroes, 



MY DOCTOR 33 



most of them have one admirable one- 



desire to express appreciation. My Doctor 
had only a few negro patients and did not 
want many. There were some who were 
always his faithful followers, who believed 
so implicitly in him that they stopped him 
by the wayside to get prescriptions from him, 
if he was too busy or for other reasons did not 
care to go to their homes. He preferred 
that most of the negroes should have a doctor 
of their own race. To discuss the why would 
be to tell of the conditions and tendencies of 
the average of the negro race which would be 
to digress from my purpose in writing. 

Early in My Doctor's practice, mothers 
began to name their babies for him. One 
of the first babies to be given his name was 
born in a shack at the woodyard — a wood- 
chopper's child. The little one was dressed 
in a bright red calico dress, with big white 
polka dots on it. This baby had more than 
babies usually have of hair, which was very 
dark, and with his big eyes of a peculiar color 
of blue that would later be brown was not 
unlike an Indian baby, in his bright colored 



34 MY DOCTOR 

dress. My Doctor's wife made that baby a 
dress and carried it to him. The mother in 
her simple way said, ' ' We call him now ' Little 
Doc. ' Guess he'll alius be Doc. " 

The young doctors, or the newly located 
ones, can make their visits to the same places 
(the abodes of the poor and humble), where 
true charity goes. 

There were many babies named for My 
Doctor. Some were given his full name, 
"James Clinton" or "James Moore," and 
there were several given only his middle 
name "Clinton." 

A number of mothers gave My Doctor 
their babies' pictures. He had a portion of 
one of the side walls in his private office 
ornamented with those photographs and 
kodak pictures. They were babies he had 
looked after physically, from the beginning 
of their existence. 

He loved that little bit of ornamentation, 
for he had a tender feeling for the realities 
that each little picture represented, and for 
all the other little ones he had watched over 
continuously, as their doctor. 

The family physician appreciates the love 



MY DOCTOR 35 

of the children and the true respect and sin- 
cere trust of those that are older. He is at 
his best when he feels that he has that con- 
sideration. It is more than money. 

When a doctor is greeted with, "I sent for 
you because I had to send for somebody," 
down in his heart he would rather not have 
had the call. I remember My Doctor once 
had a greeting like that. The next time he 
had a call to go into that home he was ' ' Too 
busy" to go, notwithstanding that the head 
of the family paid his bills promptly. 

The parts of the body and the functions 
thereof are no more lowly vulgar nor coarsely 
common to a real doctor than the parts of a 
complicated engine are to an engineer, or the 
pieces that make the piano to a piano tuner. 
Our bodies are the only earthly reality that 
those of any faith believe is promised eternity, 
and all who trust in the Scriptures believe the 
' ' Body the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is 
in us"; then it is fit that all that concerns it 
should be esteemed in the highest, purest 
sense. 

At one place after My Doctor had given 



36 MY DOCTOR 

hours of faithful hard service, helping nature 
bring on earth a new life, the father offered 
to give as pay a mortgage on a sewing 
machine. My Doctor did not want him to 
do so and did not let him. That man paid 
one dollar at three different times toward that 
bill. He left the town and was never heard of 
again. 

Once a half -gallon of sorghum was all that 
was given for a similar case; at another time 
he was offered some collar ds. 

There was a father who came back seven 
years afterwards for the purpose of paying 
in full the amount due My Doctor. 

My Doctor could never figure to a mathe- 
matical certainty who would pay him. There 
was an honest woman who had a "ne'er- 
do-well" husband. She called My Doctor 
to see her sick child. "Doctor, I am sorry 
to say it, but you know it. Sam will not 
pay you for this call, but I'll pay you when 
my cow comes in. " If the cow ever came in, 
Sam drank the milk, for the bill was never 
paid. 

My Doctor did learn that the few whom he 
had practiced for, that ever said the least 



MY DOCTOR 37 

critical things concerning his work, were 
those who were not responding to the "Bal- 
ance due" they received. The most of My 
Doctor's people for whom he practiced were 
very honorable in their dealings with him. 
He understood their circumstances and did 
not expect the impossible. About as happy 
as a paid-in-full ever made My Doctor was 
when he received the check with the following 
note : 

"My dear Dr. Moore: 

"For the honest, conscientious, sympa- 
thetic, and able services rendered my wife, I 
am now out of your debt financially ; but I feel 
that I shall always owe you a debt of grati- 
tude, which only a lifetime of gratefulness 
can repay. 

"Believe me, most sincerely, 

1 1 Your friend, 

J. L. C ." 

A good friend of My Doctor kindly gave 
him cinder for his driveway beyond his garage 
so he could make the turn with his car and 
not get in the mud. Soon after that this 



38 MY DOCTOR 

friend had an injured foot. My Doctor 
tended him and did not make any charge. 
The friend appreciated his services to such 
an extent that he sent a check anyway. My 
Doctor returned it, after drawing a line 
through both their names, and writing on it, 
''Back to the sender in appreciation of the 
cinder." 

I do not think My Doctor ever asked a 
man directly, face to face, for the amount 
due for professional work. Every two months 
he mailed his bills. Twice, in the years of 
his professional experience, he gave to col- 
lectors bills that should be paid but had not, 
and if there had not been the collector to 
follow up their promises, would not. 

When there were only two or three auto- 
mobiles in the town and those few were used 
for pleasure only, My Doctor decided to get 
a car for professional service. Makes of 
cars were in the beginning of their making. 
There were no agencies near. 

My Doctor had his wife get together all 
the magazines in the home and those from 
the nearest neighbor. He brought from his 



MY DOCTOR 39 

office his medical journals. Together they 
looked over the cuts of the advertised auto- 
mobiles. The one making the prettiest 
appearance with a nice curving dashboard 
and other symmetrical lines was selected and 
ordered. After it came a young man who 
knew a little more than the average citizen 
about automobiles, and who did not know 
enough to justify him to boast about it, was 
hired a half -day at a time to teach the art of 
guiding the car. It would stay in the road 
for the young man, which was more than it 
would do for My Doctor. For several days 
My Doctor stuck to the broad street in front 
of his residence, that is, as much as he could. 
The car would take a slanting run into the 
park across the street. Then without any 
warning it would be just as apt to try the 
sidewalk on the opposite side of the street 
for a part of a block if a shade tree did not 
stop it. 

When he had learned to keep the car in the 
road he made his first professional call in it. 
The patient was a little over a mile from his 
residence. It was a very hot day that he made 
the visit. Then he cranked, and cranked. 



40 MY DOCTOR 

He melted all his starched wearing apparel 
and the car showed him plainly that it was 
not going to move. He went to a telephone 
near, and called the young man who had 
taught him how to run the car. The young 
fellow came and looked at the spark-plug. 
Early automobilists thought spark-plug as 
people with sick cows once thought hollow- 
horn the one certain trouble if not the only 
one that was sure to exist. The young man 
was being paid by the hour. He kept experi- 
menting. He found a little something that 
looked like a push button that had shaken out 
of its socket near the floor of the car beneath 
the seat. 

That little car was like a degenerate person 
— out of one trouble into another. 

After My Doctor had been using his auto- 
mobile for several months, and had mastered 
as well as he could that car, he went to see a 
patient who lived on one of the steepest hills 
in town. The car went up the hill, but in 
coming down the brakes would not hold. He 
lost control. The car turned upside down 
throwing him against a tree with such force 
that an ugly gash was cut above his eye. 



MY DOCTOR 41 

One of My Doctor's good friends saw the 
accident. He called a street hack and 
brought his doctor friend home. When 
My Doctor was taken into his own home, 
he was literally covered with blood and dirt. 

Another physician was summoned. After 
My Doctor was cleaned up the physician 
who had been called arrived. He found 
it was necessary to take seven stitches in the 
horseshoe-shaped cut above My Doctor's 
right eye. He also found that My Doctor 
had a considerably injured knee. 

That was about the noon hour. Before 
night My Doctor was out with his head band- 
aged and limping to see some of his own 
patients, who wanted their own doctor. 
Within a few days he was using his car, which 
had not fared so badly as the doctor on 
account of the accident. 

He never tried the Twenty-fourth Street 
hill again with any automobile. He would 
always stop his car before he reached the 
steepest part of the hill and walk a block or 
more. He never was fond of walking. 
Many times he took out his car to go two or 
three blocks. 



42 MY DOCTOR 

My Doctor wrote to the factory and told 
them of the many difficulties that he was 
having with the little car. After sending 
several letters back and forth, the automobile 
company agreed to let their best machinist 
come seven hundred miles at My Doctor's 
expense. He was to make everything con- 
cerning the car right. He came. He tight- 
ened up a few bolts, and said the car was as 
good as it ever was. No doubt it was. That 
is like saying to any girl, "You are as pretty 
as you can be, " if she is gotten up in fairly 
good taste. It is a safe statement to say 
and stick to the truth in saying it. 

That car was good to learn upon, if not 
dependable to go from patient to patient. 

Later My Doctor had several other cars. 
He had some mechanical ability and learned 
much about the upkeep of the cars himself. 

His last car he loved, as he did the horses 
he had owned, that gave him satisfactory 
service before his experience with automo- 
biles. He said all his cars were like the little 
girl that had the curl that hung on her fore- 
head. When they were good, they were very 
good and when they were bad they were horrid. 



MY DOCTOR 43 

My Doctor was daily coming in contact 
with interesting experiences, amusing and 
pathetic. 

A mother came bringing in her arms a 
large seven months' old. She came to inter- 
view My Doctor at his midday rest hour. 
His usual plan was after having his midday 
meal to lie down and rest for a half -hour 
before again starting on his round of calls. 

This mother said, "Doctor, I want you to 
tell me what ails this young un. " In her 
quaint unlearned way, she wanted to know 
why her baby refused to take his nourish- 
ment as nature intended he should. My 
Doctor picked up the baby and felt his flesh. 

"Mrs. S you have been feeding him 

something, haven't you?" "Yeah, I chewed 
up bread an' taters and pies an' things fur 
him most ever sense he wus a month old." 
My Doctor said, "He is, as far as I can see, 
thriving on it, for he surely is a fine looking 
baby." After the mother left with the 
child the doctor said emphatically: "I be 
John Brown! If fools do not work their 
children's guardian angels overtime, but 
somehow the angels stay on their jobs." 



44 MY DOCTOR 

The telephone rings, "Come at once. 
Someone is hurt at the shop. " The doctor 
to go without dinner and rest? To be sure. 
The woman with the fat fed baby had taken 
up his dinner hour. He could not make her 
any charges for the time. Perhaps he will 
get home about the middle of the afternoon. 
Most likely supper will be his first refresh- 
ments. 

Night at the doctor's home is different 
from that of any other home. The firemens' 
halls where the paid firemen sleep are in some 
respects similar. Most people when they go 
to sleep know, to a certain extent, they can 
sleep on until day, but a busy doctor never 
knows how many times in one night his rest 
will be broken. 

In another respect the life of the busy 
doctor is like the firemen who are employed 
by the city — the worse the weather and the 
more comfortably asleep they are, is the most 
sure time for being called. Then, should 
they get out of hearing of the telephones from 
which they usually receive their messages, 
some one of their best patients is apt to have 
urgent need of them. 



MY DOCTOR 45 

A disagreeable night, My Doctor had 
been out in the rain and sleet. Another call 
as he goes out to stand the weather again. 
This is a part of it. " Look for me when you 

see me coming. I am going to John Mc ' ' 

or some such place where he is accustomed to 
be going or expecting to be called. 

When he had been over thirty hours of 
steady going and serving, and had gotten home 
and had had something to eat and had gone to 
sleep (he was very fortunate in usually being 
able to go to sleep quickly whenever he had 
the opportunity), the telephone would ring. 
The wife tries to answer it quickly and 
quietly so the doctor can sleep a little longer. 
She knows how badly he needs the rest. She 
is sharing his anxieties about the lives he is 
using all his efforts to save. He has told 
her. She understands and knows the neces- 
sity for the doctor's rest. The woman at the 
other end of the line could not give the mes- 
sage to the doctor's wife, although the wife 
had asked with her softest gentlest tones, 
" Can't you give me the message, please? 
Doctor is busy now. ' ' She never could say 
he was not in, but her conscience did let her 



46 MY DOCTOR 

say busy when he was getting badly needed 
sleep. That particular message was, ''Doc- 
tor, I just gave my baby a dose of castor oil, 
did I do right?" My Doctor's answers were: 
"Yes ma'am, yes ma'am," and more than a 
dozen more of the same replies, before the 
mother of the oil-dosed baby ever got through 
telephoning. 

That mother got the information that she 
did right in giving her baby the dose of oil 
she had already given him. The doctor got 
the information about everything that 
mother knew concerning her baby, her home, 
her neighborhood, also the best way to keep 
an old hen from setting. He did not get a 
thing to charge, not even a prescription, and 
he did not get any more rest for ten hours. 

There was a side-street merchant dealing 
in the smaller staple things. His money 
came slowly, and by nature and habit he did 
not like to spend any of it. His wife was a 
shrinking little woman. She seldom ever- 
spoke and never came to a decision without 
her husband's aid. He selected her and the 
children's few clothes and the household 



MY DOCTOR 47 

things. They looked like it. He always de- 
ferred calling a doctor. If a calamity or se- 
vere sickness occurred, My Doctor was always 
called. That man paid before the doctor 
left the house, but he looked at each dollar 
with a farewell, as if he was looking to see the 
date or some familiar mark, hoping to have it 
again. 

Somehow My Doctor had to be called into 
that home often. Perhaps it was because 
the head of the family gave regular dosings 
to his entire household of the different patent 
medicines that he could not sell that he had 
in his store. The wife of this man never 
called My Doctor until she had sent to the 
store to ask if she might. She had her little 
child go to the store for her husband that 
he might send for My Doctor. The husband 
was not out at the store. She had sent the 
third time before the child found him. By 
then on account of the hemorrhage and the 
new snuffed-out life by her, it was too late. 
When the doctor arrived her breathing rhad 
almost ceased. 

The head of the household had to send a 
telegram to his mother-in-law. He stopped 



48 MY DOCTOR 

expressing grief in every possible way long 
enough to ask the doctor to write the tele- 
gram. My Doctor wrote: "Mary dead, 
come at once. " Then he gave the man the 
message. After carefully reading it the man 
said, "Doc, kaint you send ten words for a 
quarter?" My Doctor assured him that he 
could. The man wrote on to the message. 
"Too bad, I'm so sad." Then he went out 
to the store and telephoned it in, and had to 
pay for an extra word over the quarter's 
worth, for he did not know Tm was two words. 

My Doctor often said "too bad, I'm so 
sad, " whenever he saw a person that wanted 
more than his money's worth in every deal. 

There was a pretty mother of two fine little 
boys, one having My Doctor's name for his 
given name. My Doctor had been her doctor 
since she came to the town as a bride. The 
little woman was a busy housekeeper, and 
always neighborly in times of trouble. She 
had a sick neighbor, that neighbor had no tele- 
phone. The sick woman needed some medi- 
cal attention hurriedly. The little mother 
went across the street in haste to her own 
telephone to give the message. She fell and 



MY DOCTOR 49 

hurt herself. She did not consider it serious, 
but it was, although she kept busy doing 
good, and her household duties. My Doctor, 
for several years, used all the means possible, 
but her physical condition did not satisfac- 
torily respond to any remedy used. He 
assisted the husband in making it possible 
for that patient to go to one of the leading 
specialists in a distant city. He wrote the 
specialist in reference to the case. This was 
the concluding sentence of his letter. "I 
do hope you can be the means of helping this 
patient, for she is the mother of two fine little 
boys who need her. " 

Little Nellie had some contagious disease, 
scarlet fever, I think it was. The house 
was quarantined. The older sister stayed at 
her grandmother's. Nellie and her mother 
were alone for several weeks except for My 
Doctor's daily call. They both looked for- 
ward from visit to visit of the doctor, es- 
pecially Nellie. She had been going to 
school and had learned to write letters. 
She was very anxious to write to her relatives 
and friends when she began to get strong 



50 MY DOCTOR 

enough. Her mother said, "You can't do 
it, dear. " Then she explained to her why. 
Nellie said, "I know what I will do, I'll write 
to my doctor. " So daily she had her letters 
written when he came. He read them and 
answered them orally, much to her enjoy- 
ment. When she got well she said, "Doctor, 
what would I have done for so long, if I 
had not had you to write to?" 

As the days are not all full of sunshine and 
the breezes are not always balmy, there are 
stormy rough places that come into busy 
lives. My Doctor was really arrested. He 
had the happy way of forgiving and forgetting 
and looking back on events that had been 
unpleasant for the time being, as amusing. 
He never saw any fun in that experience of 
being arrested. 

One night he was down at a prominent 
drug store. It was a little after dark. He 
had not been home to supper. His usual 
time for coming home was half -past seven. 
While he was talking to someone in the drug 
store the sheriff came in, and went over 
and put his hand on My Doctor's arm and 



MY DOCTOR 51 

said, "Dr. Moore, you are under arrest, 
sir. 

My Doctor knew the sheriff very well, so 
he thought at first it was a joke, and said, 

"The I am?" The sheriff got out his 

warrant and showed it to him. My Doctor 
was much angrier than in his contract ex- 
perience when the mine owner was going to 
take from him the telephone system. There 
were some friends in the drug store who went 
on his bond at once, so he was not taken to 
prison. 

The arrest was for the stated reason that 
My Doctor had not reported a case of small- 
pox. The warrant was issued under the 
direction of the doctor who was at that time 
County Health Officer. When My Doctor 
came home, he was too angry to eat his supper. 
He told his wife everything concerning his 
being arrested. He used some expletives 
a little stronger than adjectives in explaining 
and describing. She was blessed in keeping 
calm the few times in the doctor's life that 
he felt and showed anger. 

My Doctor, a week or so before being 
arrested, had been out beyond the furnace in 



52 MY DOCTOR 

the suburbs to see John O . When he 

went, the patient had just begun to be sick. 
The case had not advanced far enough for 
any doctor to say exactly what it was. In 
a few days My Doctor was informed that 
the County Health Officer had taken 
charge, pronounced the case smallpox, and 
put up the yellow flag. My Doctor was 
very busy with his other many duties, and 
never went back and never thought anything 
about it until his arrest. 

My Doctor, after deliberating a little, 
decided on his plans. He found out the case 
would come before the probate court. The 
probate judge was a man for whom My Doc- 
tor had great respect. When he saw the 
judge he told him of the arrest. He also 
told the judge when the case came up he 
would be there, but he was not going to any 
expense about it. 

The day of the trial the Health Officer had 
the County Solicitor for his lawyer. He 
had for his witnesses two well-known doctors 
to prove that the patient had a real case of 
smallpox. They went on with the case. 
Then the judge asked My Doctor what he 



MY DOCTOR 53 

had to say. My Doctor gave the facts of 
his connections of the case. No court pro- 
ceedings ever embarrassed him, for he was 
used to seeing similar experiences when he was 
a boy. When My Doctor had finished, the 
judge said, as he looked at the three doctors 
and the County Solicitor, "Gentlemen, you 
have no case." 

My Doctor went out of the court-house 
alone, but remarked as he left, ' ' If some folks 
had more business of their own to attend to, 

they would not have so d much time to 

attend to that of other people. " 

There was a dear old maid who was gentle 
to everyone and kind to everybody. She had 
some money and time for whatever she cared 
to do — one thing in particular was to keep her 
hair dyed. It was at one time blondined, 
another it had a reddish tinge, and perhaps 
when you saw her again it would be brown 
or streaked, but never gray. 

She had long passed the periodical conflict 
that her physical condition had undergone. 
Several times yearly she would send for My 
Doctor and in a squeaky stage-whispering 



54 MY DOCTOR 

voice say, ' ' Doctor, you know at such times 
as this I have to be so particular, etc. " By 
her whispering to the doctor and her subdued 
conversations with her neighbors and friends 
she wanted it understood she was still young. 
My Doctor had to deal with her sentimental 
emotions rather than her bodily ailments 
until she had an unfortunate accident. 

This dear old lady went to a Hallowe'en 
affair. There were several contests. Among 
them was one in which apples were hung by 
strings from a beam. The contestants were 
each to eat an apple without touching it with 
his or her hands. The old maid entered the 
contest. She stretched her mouth and went 
after the apple. Her young friends stood 
around saying, "Go it Miss Fanny. I am 
betting on you." She was the winner, but 
hurt her jaw. She told My Doctor, "They 
said 'go it* and I went it. Then I heard a 
pop of my jaw. I did not feel anything bad 
for a day or two. Now I can't chew anything 
hard, and there is soreness all the time." 
My Doctor treated her gently and patiently, 
and was truly sympathetic for the several 
months of slow treatment. He had a keen 



MY DOCTOR 55 

sense of humor, and was often amused at that 
dear old maid. 

There was a young man and his sister — she 
about twenty years old — living on a farm. 
The young woman had some kind of spells 
if things did not quite go to suit her. She 
would faint, get unconscious, become rigid, 
etc. Her brother would hurry for My Doctor. 
After she had had several such spells, that 
one particular time My Doctor did not hurry 
and she had gotten through with one round, 
when the doctor went in she was ready to 
begin another. She always managed to find 
a comfortable place to fall. My Doctor 
saw she was making her preparations; as 
she began her fainting, he grabbed her by 
her shoulder and also her hair and gave 
one a twist and the other a jerk. She did 
not get unconscious that time. My Doc- 
tor said: "Darn you, you have given this 
good brother of yours and these other folks 
enough trouble. It is high time for you 
to stop this foolishness." It was a cure 
and a permanent one. Never after did I 
know My Doctor to use the same remedy. 



56 MY DOCTOR 

He never said he regretted using it that 
time. 

My Doctor put his work and those for 
whom he practiced, first at all times. There 
was to be a merry party to take a trip to New 
York. He had planned to go. His suit-case 
was packed. The son of one of his good 
friends came home with typhoid fever the 
night before the party left. That settled it 
for him. He did not go. The faithful good 
mother needed her doctor (My Doctor) to 
help be the means of bringing back to health 
her handsome young son. 

There was a young railroad employee. He 
was so mentally quick with acute sense of 
wit and humor that My Doctor enjoyed his 
companionship, and claimed him as one of 
his inner circle of friends. This young man 
was hurt while tending to his regular work. 
It happened in another town. My Doctor 
was much concerned about him. Every day 
he mentioned him. He took more than a 
doctor's interest in the young man when he 
could be moved home where he could give 
him his personal attention. 



MY DOCTOR 57 

Another young friend was a member of a 
volunteer fire company. There was a fire 
at a big mill. This young man fell from a 
ladder which caused a badly fractured arm. 
My Doctor was surgeon for the fire company, 
an honored position without pay. He ac- 
cepted it as his duty to attend the young 
man. It was sympathetic patient work for 
his friend. He knew the worth of the honor- 
able young man. He knew the struggles he 
had ; that many troubles had been in his life 
that were not of his own making. 

Among My Doctor's patients was a boy, 
almost a young man. He was as much be- 
loved by everyone who knew him as any boy 
ever is. He became sick with a severe form 
of pneumonia. My Doctor was intensely in- 
terested in his case. He could get no good re- 
sults from the means he used. He spent all his 
spare time reading, hoping to find some knowl- 
edge that he had not tried that might be 
effective if used in combating the disease. 
He asked the family if they cared to do so to 
call in another physician for a consultation. 
That doctor did not see anything else that 
could be done. The disease worked quickly. 



58 MY DOCTOR 

When everything had failed and the family 
had been told so, my big strong doctor wept. 
He said later in referring to it : ' ' It hurt me so 
to see that boy go, but I don't believe any 
power this side of heaven could have helped 
it. " 

In a simple little home out in the suburbs 
lived a man, wife, and several children, and an 
old great-grandmother. Oftentimes the peo- 
ple of little means are big of heart in caring for 
the dependent. As My Doctor entered, two 
ladies who liked to do charity first hand had 
just left. It was a warm day. My Doctor 
put his hat wherever convenient, and went 
over and took the hand of the sick old woman 
who was in a bed in the corner of the best 
room in the house. If he noticed it he did 
not show it in anyway that things were only 
partially clean and want was visible every- 
where; with "the voice of Love, and the 
smile and the comforting eye" he said most 
likely the words that any real doctor would 
have said. 

The old woman began to talk of how good 
it was for the ladies of affluence to come into 



MY DOCTOR 59 

their poor home to do things for her. She 
kept up her talk of the poor surroundings. 
My Doctor said, ' ' Look here, Grandma, your 
home is like their homes, and my home. 
It is your castle. When you go anywhere and 
stay any time, this is the best place in the 
world to come back to, isn't it?" He knew 
that a short time before that the old woman 
had been glad to get back to that home after 
trying to stay with another relative elsewhere 
who was in considerably better circumstances. 
He got the right mental effect to assist his 
remedies. He also left a happier old woman 
by his cheerful suggestion. 

My Doctor always had some patients who 
took the privilege of diagnosing their own 
cases. Sometimes they would wait until 
My Doctor entered the sick room and before 
he could take off his hat, and be ready to give 
his attention to the case, the patient had 
made a diagnosis, and was ready for the 
doctor to agree to what the disease was and 
also to the treatment the patient suggested. 

This is a written description and name of 
her trouble, My Doctor received before he 



60 MY DOCTOR 

could get to see the patient. "I am just so 
weak, I can hardly walk and have had a place 
in my stomach for some time. When it 
first come, I could not lie on my back. It 
would flutter like some live thing. But 
now keen pains run through me like a knife 
cutting, and I can feel like something running 
on each side of my stomach. I have to have 
something to eat every half -hour, if not my 
stomach is just gnawing. I have all symp- 
toms of worms. Bleave I got them. " 

There was one case where an Irishman, 
under the influence of whiskey, tried an 
operation upon himself. 

It was during Christmas week. There 
were sure to be more or less fatalities during 
the Christmas season, back in the years when 
alcoholic drinks were sold on nearly every 
corner and in the middle of most of the 
blocks. Pat O'Reiley (that is not his real 
name) was a hard-working fellow and equally 
as hard drinking when the spells came on 
him. Usually on holidays he had a round 
of drinking if he had worked up till then, and 
had the money. 



MY DOCTOR 61 

Norah, his wife, had been accustomed to 
seeing men drink. She accepted it as "The 
way of 'im. " If he became too obstreperous 
she locked herself and her family away from 
him, or locked him into a room alone. 

"Norah, me darlin', open the door and let 
me in." The children had gone to sleep. 
Norah was singing and mending the little 
ones' clothes and paid no attention to Pat. 
" Norah, I want to kiss the children good- 
night and you too before you go to your 
dreamin'. I just must kiss you, Norah, me 
darlin'/' Still no answer. "Norah, if you 
don't let me in I'll operate on meself, so you 
will let me in." Norah laughed. Then she 
heard a painful scream. "Norah, me darlin', 
I'm dying — bleeding to death. Call me 
doctor, call me doctor!" 

My Doctor hurriedly went and as he 
worked Norah told him the above conversa- 
tion. He advised Norah to say nothing to 
any one. "Pat is a good fellow. He will 
soon be all right. Hope this will be his last 
jag. It looks like this would be enough to 
teach him to let the damnable stuff alone. 
The fool came near bleeding to death. ' ' 



62 MY DOCTOR 

"Faith and begorra, I'm thinking so too," 
said Norah. 

My Doctor was not much for religious 
discussions. When he attempted to quote 
the Bible, which was very seldom, he usually 
got mixed as to the different divine writers 
and their oftenest quoted verses. He would 
give Paul credit for James's statement con- 
cerning faith, then he would give his own re- 
vised version as "Faith without works isn't 

worth a . " He was always sure of the 

simple principles of faith, and strong on 
brotherly love. 

There was a seriously sick man. My 
Doctor had done all he could for him. He 
noticed that the patient was very nervous, 
with an expression of having something 
important to say. "Well, what is it John?" 
"Doctor, you have not told me yet, but I 
know I am going to die, and I am afraid to die. 
Doctor, I am not straight of this Heaven 
and Hell of the hereafter." "John, that 
need not worry you long. You can decide 
that right now," said My Doctor. "In 
the first place did you ever hear anything 



MY DOCTOR 63 

bad of Heaven ? ' ' "No, Doctor. " " Well, 
did you ever hear anything good of the other 
place?" "I never did," said the patient. 
"Well, you know which you would like best, 
don't you?" "Yes, sir, but Doctor I've 
been — " My Doctor did not let him speak 
farther, but said himself, "You have been 
little but you are big now. We can't keep 
on being what we once were. We are always 
changing. Bring that Bible here and some 
of you good folks tell him the rest. If you 
can't, get a preacher. He knows how and 
would like the job." With a smile that 
proceeded from "a wonderful strength in 
cheerfulness," he left to see another patient. 

There was a man for whom My Doctor 
had practiced in the first years of his profes- 
sional work. The man had unusual good 
mechanical ability and was master mechanic 
at one of the shops. There was a strike on, 
and as he was considered one of the leaders 
he was never reinstated to the position he 
had held. Soon after that there was con- 
siderable business depression. The good 
workman lost his home. Then he left the 



64 MY DOCTOR 

town for several years. Whenever any of his 
family were real sick, he came back to talk to 
My Doctor concerning the sickness. Later 
he came back to town, but he had no perma- 
nent work. A few days at one job and a few 
days at another had been his employment 
for a year or more. My Doctor learned of a 
place that he believed would suit the good 
man. The place was to be filled that day. 
He (My Doctor) was the means of putting the 
employer in touch with the capable man and 
assisting him in obtaining a permanent job. 
It was no money consideration to the doctor. 
That workman was honest. He and his faith- 
ful wife paid their doctor bills if they had to 
make sacrifices to do so. It was for the 
betterment of that family and the hope that 
the children within that home could have 
the advantages that the parents wished to 
give them. 

One night a little after nine o'clock there 
was a telephone message given by a woman 
with a high-pitched voice indicating that she 
was much excited. She wanted My Doctor 
to come at once. As a rule the come at once 



MY DOCTOR 65 

people are not always the pay at once. Those 
people always paid promptly. 

My Doctor went out to the garage, and 
had a little trouble in getting his car to start, 
perhaps he was out there for ten or fifteen 
minutes. In the meantime the message was 
repeated in a man's voice for the doctor to 
hurry. When My Doctor was told of that 
hurrying message, he said, ' ' They must have 
some sick visitor, for I am certain the man 
and wife are the only ones that belong in that 
home." 

When My Doctor returned from the call, he 
said that when he got to the home the man 
and wife both met him at the door ; the woman 
was wringing her hands, and gasping for her 
words as she said: "Oh, Doctor! I am so 
glad you are here. Poor Prince Tee Wee 
has had two convulsions. " Prince Tee Wee 
was the little pet dog. My Doctor said: "I 
am not the one you want. You should have 
sent for the veterinary doctor." 

"No, Doctor, we know you and we do 
not know him and we could not trust Prince 
Tee Wee with a real stranger. " 

My Doctor said he was so disgusted that 



66 MY DOCTOR 

he felt like coming back home at once. He 
decided he had gone to the trouble of making 
the call. Let them pay him for it. So he 
went into the house. The woman brought 
out the little pet dog on a sofa pillow with a 
towel folded beneath him. He said the little 
creature looked like a small-sized sofa pillow 
made of unsheared sheepskin, with a face 
and head not much larger than a silver dollar. 
The woman held out the little bundle toward 
him. My Doctor said, in telling of it, "I'd 
be dog-goned, if I was going to put that dog 
on my lap. " So he told the woman she had 
better do the holding. He did not try to 
make a very careful diagnosis. He suggested 
that if the adopted parents wished, he could 
put the little Prince Tee Wee to everlasting 
rest. There were objections from both the 
man and woman. ' ' We could not stand that, 
Doctor." 

My Doctor's keen sense of humor came to 
his aid. He took his prescription pad and 
wrote two or three prescriptions of mild forms 
of medicines used for babies and gave direc- 
tions for that dog to be dosed every two hours 
all that night. The woman said, "Doctor, 



MY DOCTOR 67 

suppose Tee Wee is asleep?" " Well, Mrs. 
Blank, just hold his nose and give it to him 
anyway." 

The drug stores close at ten. He had 
Mr. Blank hurry to town with him to get 
the medicine. My Doctor usually made 
rather long calls, but he did not linger long 
over the little dog. 

Prince Tee Wee and his line of royalty may 
be living yet so far as I know. Soon after 
that, the dog, accompanied by the man and 
woman, moved away from our town. 

There was no hospital in the town. In 
his experiences, My Doctor saw many times 
where he desired very much to have one, to 
get the results he wanted and believed he 
could get, if the patient could have good at- 
tention with aseptic surroundings. He made 
the sacrifice of his own home, building a small 
modern operating room and sterilizing room. 

Several times he went to New York for 
post-graduate study to learn more of opera- 
tive work and medical and surgical electricity. 

He gave his best of mind, strength, and 
money. It was a losing undertaking finan- 



68 MY DOCTOR 

cially, but it was a permanent beginning of 
greater things in hospital facilities for his 
town. For several years he had greater 
opportunities for helping others. 

Several young nurses were encouraged to 
make the best use of the talents they had. 
One ambitious young woman welcomed each 
effort toward improvement and made the 
best use of every opportunity. She con- 
stantly was cheerful with expectations and 
later realized her highest aspirations. 

Many patients with various ailments were 
brought back to strength. 

There was a baby who had a deformity that 
would have ruined her nappiness and those 
who loved her. By the surgical operation of 
My Doctor, she was made a normal child. 

Laudable work of any endeavor goes from 
one to another through the eye, the heart, and 
the mouth, ever telling of any one who is 
serving humanity for the highest good. The 
afflicted baby was the means of My Doctor 
having several similar operations to do that 
were successful happy work. Successful 
medical and surgical work was always happy 
work for him. 



MY DOCTOR 69 

A mother brought from a distant town, a 
lovely daughter, who was suffering with 
a terrible nervous affliction caused by a 
serious physical condition. My Doctor told 
them it would take time for the young woman 
to be benefited. After several months of 
faithful work on My Doctor's part, and 
patience and willingness by the patient, 
to use the means prescribed they were re- 
warded with the results that he had hoped 
and worked to get. 

Among the hospital experiences was an 
operation for extracting a bullet from the 
leg of a young man. During the operation 
and the after-treatment a deputy sheriff was 
ever present as a guard. Likely in some time 
or other legal officers have captive patients 
in every hospital. That patient was known 
as "The King of Turkey Heaven. " Turkey 
Heaven is a mountain in an adjoining county. 
At that time it was noted for being a strong- 
hold for the making of "moonshine whiskey " 
— the illegal making of whiskey. 

That young fellow was the leader of the 
gang of the moonshiners. He was a hand- 
some type of the mountaineer class. He 



70 MY DOCTOR 

was a decided blond with clear-cut features. 
He had an unusual amount of caution. He 
refused to take an anaesthetic to be made un- 
conscious of his suffering while the doctors 
probed for the bullet. He stood the pain with- 
out flinching. He either had dogged deter- 
mination or heroic fortitude or perhaps both. 

There were many other interesting cases, 
and some that had many amusing incidents 
concerning them, that would be worth the 
telling had the years between the then and 
the now been more, so no one or no one's 
relatives could be offended. Doctors' wives 
have a ''Code of Ethics," though unwritten 
and never discussed, of as high order as the 
doctors have. 

Dr. King, a Missouri doctor wrote: "The 
Code is intended to hold doctors to a strict 
accountability for their conduct toward each 
other. It holds them just as firmly to a 
strict accountability for their conduct toward 
their patients and the public generally. The 
Code is to the doctor the highest law in the 
universe outside of the Bible, and if he does 
not recognize the Bible, then it is the highest 
law. What the Discipline is to the Method- 



MY DOCTOR 71 

ist, the Confession of Faith to the Calvinist, 
and the Articles of Faith to the Baptist, 
the Code is to the doctor. It may be urged 
that a gentleman does not need a code. 
Neither do the healthy need a physician ; nor 
the saints in Heaven need a savior. We were 
all men before we were doctors. Men as 
varied in our instincts, education, intelligence, 
and desires as any other class of men. If 
we could make the ideal doctor first, then 
make the man to fit him, then we would need 
no code." This is an intelligent doctor's 
necessity of a Code of Ethics. The doctor's 
wife knows a great deal of the frailties, 
follies, and failures of humanity that it is 
her duty to strengthen and encourage toward 
the better things, and guard the knowledge, 
concerning the doctor's patients as she would 
wish them to do, if they knew the same or 
similar facts concerning her. There are many 
things not really wrong, yet people do not 
want the world in general, and their next door 
neighbor, in particular, to know about them. 

When a real doctor is your doctor, you can 
tell him the inmost secrets of your life. 



72 MY DOCTOR 

No one but Luke, the beloved physician, 
could have been told by Mary the most 
sacred experiences of her gentle womanly 
life. The Divine Power knew that it would 
take an ideal doctor to learn the fact from 
Mary to give to the world the singular circum- 
stances of the connection of Divinity with 
humanity. Mary could not have told Mat- 
thew, who understood men better than 
women, and who evidently was told the 
early facts concerning Jesus, by Joseph. 
Mary could not have told Mark with his 
straightway conclusion of events, nor the 
beloved John who wrote the God-given side 
of the Word, presenting to us Jesus, as a 
grown young man. She could and did tell 
Luke. He was her doctor. He could under- 
stand her maternal feelings and thoughts 
— the things that she (Mary) had "kept 
and pondered in her heart' ' until she had 
made a confidant of "Luke, the beloved 
physician." 

The patients did not tell My Doctor of 
just their bodily conditions. Less than a 
week before My Doctor's death a refined, 
gentle little matron said, while waiting down 



MY DOCTOR 73 

at his office, "I tell Doctor everything that 
concerns me and mine. " 

The people tell their doctor of their ambi- 
tions, hopes, disappointments, and family 
troubles. The world is full of family troubles. 
It is the worst side of human nature breaking 
the laws of love, if not breaking, bending into 
grotesque shapes which can seldom be 
straightened into its former symmetry. 

My Doctor was often able to give sugges- 
tions which, when followed, made lives the 
happier for the time being. 

A man and wife had a misunderstanding. 
Neither one was very wrong. Each one told 
his and her inner circle of friends. Unfor- 
tunately; they had not the same friends. 
Each heard, "I would not do this," and "I 
would not stand that . ' ' Fortunately they had 
a good friend in common, their doctor, My 
Doctor. Each went to him separately. In 
his sympathetic way he saw both sides, and in 
his own mind thought, "Them that God hath 
joined together, let not man put asunder." 
From the love of his heart toward each one 
of them he had more than tact in dealing 
with that man and wife and was able to give 



74 MY DOCTOR 

advice, that was followed and added mate- 
rially to the happiness of both of them. 

Almost daily someone went to My Doctor, 
to talk to him of the course to pursue 
in reference to his own personal affairs. 
Mothers from all walks of life went to tell 
of their boys who were giving them hours 
of worry, perhaps for leaving home, and, 
mother-like, the blame was always on the 
bad associates. 

My Doctor loved boys. He was patient 
with all that would work and tell the truth. 
He encouraged many in ambition for knowl- 
edge and position. Many times he trusted 
them with money without interest that some 
young man might have a chance to better 
himself. With one exception they were 
worthy of his confidence. 

As a member of the Board of Education, 
and as a public-spirited citizen, he was much 
concerned and gave much of his time and 
often gave his money that the boys and girls 
of his town should have good educational 
opportunities. 

Those he ministered unto, as their doctor, 
he was naturally more interested in their 



MY DOCTOR 75 

children. At one time I know that he 
stopped his conveyance, and called out to 
a girl who was returning from school, and 
loitering on the sidewalk with children whose 
influence would be bad, ' ' Ethel, run on home 
now." 

A little mother said : ' ' We love the Doctor 
to pass our way. He always smiles and 
speaks to the grown people, and waves his 
hand to the children as they call out their 
greeting to him. " 

My Doctor liked sincerity and unassuming 
things concerning himself. He loved the 
people he served. He was very human, and 
longed for the expressions of appreciation 
that they, who called him "My Doctor," 
evidently felt but were oftentimes too busy 
with their many other affairs to express. 

After My Doctor's sudden death, which 
occurred at the early hour of two in the 
morning, many knew it before day. The 
telephones in all parts of the town were 
busy. Strong men in various walks of life 
came and wept at the giving up of a beloved 
physician and their best friend. Mothers 
whom My Doctor had been with each time 



76 MY DOCTOR 

they had been blessed with Love's crown of 
motherhood came to weep with those left 
within the Doctor's home. 

Business and professional men came to show 
their respect to a man whom they knew to be 
worthy of it. Little babes in their mothers' 
arms and small children holding to their moth- 
ers' skirts were brought. One little one, bare- 
ly old enough to talk, kept saying, ' ' Mamma, 
what's the matter with Dr. Moore?" 

The spacious home, the large verandah, 
the yard, and the sidewalk were filled with the 
people, when the earnest "Man of God" was 
saying the last words over the lifeless form of 
My Doctor. 

There were a great many flowers brought 
and sent into the home. The flowers were 
mostly roses. There were thousands of roses 
in the many floral tributes of respect and love. 
Most of the flowers came from those whom 
My Doctor had served. 

"When blossom Life's sweet bud, at blush of 
day, 
When breath of withered rose at eve-time 
steals away," 



MY DOCTOR 77 

and the many years between. Eve- time has 
its own time for coming. The minister be- 
gan the services — "God does not count time 
as we do." 



THE END. 



